


And I'll Always Come (When You Bang on My Door)

by oyhumbug



Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Five Years Before, Friendship, Love, One Shot, Pre-Series, Romance, alternative history, relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:21:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26899600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oyhumbug/pseuds/oyhumbug
Summary: When Tara leaves Charming for college, she and Jax remain in contact. They're not together as a couple, but they're not exactly apart either. How could this combined with Jax's disillusionment change not only Jax and Tara's relationship but also the trajectories of their futures together and separately?
Relationships: Jax Teller & Clay Morrow (mentioned), Jax Teller & Gemma Teller Morrow (mentioned), Jax Teller & Opie Winston, Opie Winston/Donna Winston (mentioned), Tara Knowles & Opie Winston, Tara Knowles/Jax Teller
Comments: 17
Kudos: 27





	And I'll Always Come (When You Bang on My Door)

**Author's Note:**

> Although the title and certain aspects of this story were inspired by Ra Ra Riot's "Bad to Worse," this is not a song fic. This one shot, although it became another 'what if Tara and Jax got back together five years earlier' piece, was initially inspired by the idea of what they could be if they didn't cut each other out of their lives entirely when Tara went off to school in San Diego. Everything else it became just... sort of happened. I will warn you that the scenario I present in this one shot could certainly be developed and explored further, but, at this time, I do not intend to do so. I have many, many other story ideas to write about instead. (And I AM writing them.) As always, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> ~Charlynn~

**And I’ll Always Come (When You Bang on My Door)  
** **A Jax and Tara AH One Shot**

Tara knew that it was unrealistic to expect, hell even to hope, that Jax would ever be able to keep his dick out of anything and everything in a skirt when they technically weren’t together, she was hours away at school, and he couldn’t fuck her whenever he wanted. But that didn’t stop her from showing up in Charming without warning, inevitably interrupting Jax’s latest in a long, long line of conquests and getting into a fight. For someone studying to be a doctor - a surgeon, it made absolutely no sense that she would risk her very future in order to sucker punch a cro-eater or two, but, when Tara walked into that SAMCRO clubhouse, all of her common sense and restraint went out of the window, and her fists went flying.  
  
That’s where her mind was at as she made the more than five hour trip from L.A. to Charming. Combined with the weather - heavy rains with gusting winds that obscured her vision and seemed to toss her small SUV from one lane to another on I-5, Tara probably should have just turned around, skipped her surprise visit, and gone home. But she pressed on, so, by the time she was forced to park on the street outside of the Teller-Morrow lot, because there were so many cars, bikes, and trucks at the party that night - not so much for New Year’s Eve but simply because it was SAMCRO, Tara had a tension headache, her neck and back were stiff from the tight grip she’d kept on the steering wheel for the better part of her trip, she was tired, and the very last thing she wanted to do was share Jax with anyone.  
  
Rolling back her shoulders so that her posture was perfect, Tara slipped her cell phone into the right back pocket of her jeans before confidently, purposefully striding towards the clubhouse’s door. The rain had finally calmed to a mere drizzle just in time for Tara to climb out of her vehicle and walk inside. Before she had even crossed the road, she could feel the base of the music coming from inside, its vibrations coming up through the pavement to settle into her legs like blood flow returning after numbness. As the breeze kicked up once more, Tara fought the urge to shiver, the soft, long sleeved sweater she wore doing little to keep her warm.   
  
Because, no, when she came back to Charming… even if it was only for one night, that, keeping her warm, was Jax’s job.  
  
And tequila’s.  
  
Although there were a few people quietly milling about outside of the clubhouse - sitting on the picnic tables, smoking, and hiding deeper in the shadows... doing what Tara didn’t want to know, no one paid her any mind as she walked by them. And she didn’t really look either, because, if they were someone she wanted to see, there’d be nothing quiet or hidden about their presence. Emphatically, she pushed the door open, knowing that, even if it slammed against the cinderblock wall behind it, no one would be able to hear the smack over the sheer cacophony of noises coming from inside.  
  
Besides the heavy, classic rock, there was the overlapping voices - dozens of people trying to be heard over one another and every other sound in the packed room, the crack of pool balls exploding together, and bottles being slammed on top of the bar or clinked against each other. If the volume level was a wall Tara found herself smacking into, the smell - smoke, spilled booze, cheap perfume, sweat, and sex - was a blackhole. As soon as she stepped into the clubhouse, the atmosphere completely consumed her. But Tara only noticed her surroundings distantly - like the whine of a mosquito or the early scent of rain, because, like the magnet he was, her eyes immediately sought out and found Jax, and, then, he was all that Tara could see, hear, or notice.  
  
Maybe people moved out of her way, or maybe she pushed them out of it, but, however a path was cleared, Tara was slipping into the space between two bar stools - the one in front of her holding Jax, the one behind her a faceless, nameless obstacle - in a matter of seconds. Jax was turned away from the bar… for the better to make his lap available to the scantily clad woman practically humping it - _whore_ , so he immediately noticed Tara, his eyes going what would have been comically wide if she wasn’t so infuriated with him, his predictability, and herself for only caring so much as that the other woman was a delay and not a deterrent.  
  
“Oh shit,” Jax swore, the beer bottle he was about to bring up to his lips completely sliding out of his suddenly lax grip. It fell onto the bartop, spilling. The foaming liquid waterfalled over the outside edge of the sticky and already wet mahogany.   
  
Without looking at the cro-eater, the stripper, the porn star - with SAMCRO, one never knew just how lowly the women were, Tara demanded, “you. Leave. Now.”  
  
But the woman didn’t move. Instead, she gaped at Tara - her mouth wide and a perfect circle. No doubt, she was going for shocked, but the look just came across as _professional_.   
  
“Yeah, I’d really do what she said,” Jax recommended, all but shoving the blonde off of him. She stumbled in her dangerously high heels before righting herself and attempting to right her clothing, but there was no fixing that… ensemble. With a beyond dismissive and blunt, “fuck off,” Jax forgot about the other woman… even if she actually didn’t leave as soon as she was told, lingering to glare and observe. Tara still didn’t glance away from Jax - hell, she wasn’t even sure if she had blinked yet, but she was still peripherally aware of their audience. And the slut wasn’t alone. With every moment that went by, more and more eyes - some nosy, some knowing, but all interested - came to rest upon the former couple and the always complicated and more than friends.  
  
Curious about the answer to her question but also knowing that it would elicit Jax’s temper - Tara’s desired reaction from him, so that at least they’d be approaching the evening from the same place, Tara casually queried, “where’s Opie,” finally dropping her gaze away from Jax’s and running it around the clubhouse.   
  
Instantaneously irritated, Jax groused, “we haven’t seen each other in _months_ , and that’s the first thing you say to me?”  
  
“Actually,” Tara narrowed her green eyes, bringing her right index finger up to delicately tap her bottom lip in feigned thought. If her theatrics also served to bring Jax’s attention to her mouth, then so be it. “I believe I first had to get rid of your latest whore.”  
  
Standing so that he could not only tower over her but also bring their bodies into contact from breasts to hip, Jax taunted, “she wasn’t _my_ anything. You, on the other hand….”  
  
 _Jesus christ_. All it took was thirty seconds, and Jax was already staking his claim on her. Unwilling to give in to him that quickly, that easily, Tara shoved off of Jax’s chest as much as she could given how the barstools caged them in, twisting to face the bar. “I need a drink,” she announced.   
  
Not waiting for someone to pour her something, she merely stood up on the toes of her chunky heeled boots and leaned over the wooden top, reaching for an entire bottle of whatever was nearest and purposefully not also grabbing a shot glass. The move was a mistake, however, because, in doing so, it made her sweater ride up, putting her crow, Jax’s crow, on clear display. The heavy heat of his hand was on the small of her back even before Tara could bring the bottle to her mouth, and then she was drinking deeply before the heels of her feet could make contact once again with the tacky and stained concrete floor.   
  
Without another word being exchanged between them, Jax took the whiskey from Tara and mirrored her actions, taking his own deep and fiery gulp. All around them, Tara noticed other club members - some friends, some practically strangers, but all seemingly Jax’s _brothers_ \- lift shots of their own, holding them aloft in an almost mocking salute, and then draining the glasses in a well-practiced move. The gesture came across as a combination of a toast to Jax and Tara and also a battening down of the hatches.   
  
Apparently, these little trips back to Charming that Tara sporadically made had a reputation.   
  
The hand that had just been at her waist slid down to cup her ass as Jax maneuvered Tara into his side and then pushed them both away from the bar, out into the clubhouse, and then down the hallway towards his bunkroom. With the bottle of booze still in his other hand, they left the party together without discussion, never stopping and never saying a word to anyone else or even each other.   
  
Shockingly, his room was empty… which was a good thing, because Tara wasn’t about to have sex on just-used sheets, and she didn’t particularly want to ride out into the woods somewhere like when they were teenagers. She didn’t imagine there was anything fresh or clean about Jax’s bed linens, but at least without voyeuristic proof of just how used they were, Tara had plausible deniability, and she’d take that over a wet and wretched 47 degree night.   
  
Jax placed the whiskey down next to his side of the bed. It wasn’t the left side or the right; it was whatever side was closest to the door, so he could be between Tara and anything or anyone that might try to take her away from him. It had been like that since the very first time they had shared a bed, and Tara couldn’t imagine anything changing that aspect of _them_. It was as unchangeable as Tara teasing her fingers through Jax’s facial hair, as Jax holding and nearly swallowing her face as he kissed her, as her love for him.  
  
“We both know I was trying to provoke you earlier, but, seriously, where’s Ope tonight? Now that I think about it, I didn’t see Donna out there either. They have kids now, right?” And wasn’t that a stunning thought - that her friends weren’t just married but also parents; that, if Tara had stayed in Charming, in SAMCRO, and not gone to school, then she’d, in all likelihood, be married and a parent, too. “Is that why they’re not here?” Not only did Tara appreciate Opie for his calming presence and discreet humor, but he was also a tempering influence on Jax, and she wondered, had his best friend been there that night, would she still have walked in to find another woman draped oh-so-insistently over Jax… like she, and not Tara, had some kind of claim on him.   
  
Wincing, Jax requested, “can we… talk later?”  
  
She knew what that meant. It meant that they’d never actually talk. They’d fuck, and they’d fight, and they’d drink, and they’d fall asleep between rounds, only to wake up and repeat. The order might change, but the end result would be the same. And maybe, if she thought they’d actually be able to accomplish something by talking that night, she would have insisted on a conversation first, but Tara was too keyed up, and Jax was on edge. It wasn’t his temper driving him any longer, however. Instead, she could sense him going under a wave of frenzied desperation. They were always explosive together, but their intensity that night seemed to be on a whole new level.  
  
All he needed was Tara’s slight nod to run his large, strong hands down and then under her shirt, pulling the sweater off of Tara in one fluid, practiced move, her silent acquiescence the raising of her arms. Her top would prove to be the first and only piece of clothing Jax would manage to strip off of her before their first round of sex. Their coming together was fast and frantic, almost manic even. Jax’s touch, usually so practiced, shook. Rather than even attempting to get them onto the bed, he pulled her right down to the floor, unbuttoned her jeans, yanked both her pants and her underwear down to her knees, wedged his hips awkwardly and somewhat uncomfortably between her thighs, and then thrust home.  
  
“What the hell, Jax,” Tara panted. Her nails might not have been long, but her fingers were strong, and she dug them as deeply as she could through the thin cotton of his t-shirt and into the reaper on his back. “A little foreplay would’ve been nice.”  
  
He grunted, reaching up to release her breasts from her bra, its cups stretched out and dangling uselessly beneath the pale and pink tipped globes. At the same time, Jax spread his other hand out as wide as he could to fan it low against her pelvis. From his littlest finger to his thumb, he could almost span her entire abdomen, and he used the hold to keep her in place, to press her further into the floor. “You were wet enough.”  
  
“That’s not the point!” She’d been wet since she decided to make the trip to Charming that night, but Tara would _never_ admit that Jax. His ego was already out of control; it didn’t need any bolstering. “I’d like to actually get off, not merely _service_ SAMCRO’s prince.” She knew that her voice was too loud, that it was probably carrying outside of the room and down the hallway, but no one thought that she and Jax were back there alone together merely holding hands and taking vows of chastity.   
  
“When have I ever left you hanging, Babe,” a smirking Jax asked cockily.  
  
Tara just scowled, refocusing on the feeling of fullness she only experienced when Jax was inside of her. He wasn’t wrong. Sexually, one way or another, he always went above and beyond, meeting her needs. Hell, Tara was pretty sure he could make her climax with a crooked smile and a few pretty words. But emotionally? Emotionally, he’d left her hanging often over the years - too many times, in fact, for Tara to still be making the five-plus hour trip back to him. The broken promises. The shattered dreams. The secrets, the lies, the deceptions, the disappointments. Their broken relationship. Her broken heart.   
  
Closing her eyes, Tara tried to lose herself in the moment, in the movement, in Jax. She wasn’t there to rehash their history; she was there to have fun - to get drunk and get fucked. Repeatedly. And, if Jax wanted round one to be quick and dirty, well, she was certainly ready, willing, and able to oblige him. So, she noted how hard Jax was breathing, his every heaving exhalation bathing the crook of her neck in his warmth and want. She felt the silken caress of his hair drag against her clavicle, down, over her swollen nipples, and then up again with every thrust and pull of his body into and through hers. Tara uncurled her fingers and, instead of clawing at Jax’s back, she dipped her touch beneath his clothes and caressed his shoulder blades, his tapered waist, his clenching ass. She tilted her hips slightly, and she tightened her inner muscles, trying in vain to keep Jax deep inside of her for forever but also enjoying the drag as he retreated millimeter by gloriously tight millimeter, the increased friction fantastic.   
  
And then she was orgasming. It wasn’t a fall off some sexual cliff; it was a continual landing, the pleasure slamming into her as a heady constant, not gradual like a wave. And Tara was incoherent in her near painful euphoria. She didn’t call out Jax’s name, or encouragements, or even praise. Instead, she released a low, aching sound from the back of her throat. It was too deep to be a scream but too blissed out to be a moan. Inside of her boots, Tara’s toes curled. A few seconds later, an equally wrecked but even more so dressed Jax collapsed heavily upon her, his body pressing her own even further into the carpet beneath them.   
  
Tara’s last conscious thought before sleep claimed her was that she wished Jax hadn’t put the whiskey so far away.

V

It took Tara a solid five minutes to wrangle herself out from under Jax’s manacled grip, stumble out of bed, and locate her bleating cell phone to turn off its alarm. Dizzy from the effort and freezing in the stale, early morning air, Tara just stood there afterwards, breathing deeply in an effort to center herself and clear away the haze of too much sex and booze and not enough sleep. Yes, she was hungover, but it wasn’t the first time, wouldn’t be the last, and that wasn’t what was making her feel so disoriented.   
  
It was Jax. The way he had acted towards her the night before - his ferocity combined with his unusual laconism - had her worried. Everything between them had always been intense, but Jax had taken them to a whole new level of fervor the night before. Quite frankly, he’d been insatiable… which Tara wasn’t complaining about! She would be feeling the ache of his touch, of his thrusts, of her pleasure for days, and that was a good thing. But usually when she left Jax after one of her spur of the moment visits, she left feeling like she had made the right decision in coming back to him... even if only for a few hours. She didn’t have that feeling that morning.  
  
Looking over at him still sound asleep on the bed, Tara couldn’t help but smirk softly. After all, she wasn’t the only one who would be feeling their sex for days to come. Sprawled out spread eagle on his stomach, completely naked and with every sheet and blanket pushed haphazardly to the floor, Tara could not only see just how much _she_ had exhausted _him_ , but she could also relive their many rounds of sex through the physical reminders, the brands, she had left all over his body - scrach marks and hickeys, bruises in the shape of her handprints and the pads of her fingers. His long blonde hair was still slick from sweat, and it stuck out in every direction from Tara’s insistent, demanding grip. Though it had taken some maneuvering to slide out from underneath him - Jax holding onto her as tightly as he could even in his sleep, he hadn’t stirred even once since she’d escaped his possessive grasp.   
  
When the cell phone in her hand started going off again - the second alarm she had set the night before just for this particular scenario, she jumped, startled, and swore. “Shit.” She needed to leave. Now.  
  
With only her socks still on - _warm feet, warm pussy, Babe_ , she had to search for her clothes. Jax’s bunk room wasn’t big, but he was quite adept at stripping Tara of her clothes and then making it difficult for her to locate them again. In the end, she found everything _but_ her underwear… which, considering this was Jax, seemed about right. Knowing she should shower but unwilling to wash the smell of him, of them together, off of her body yet no matter how sentimental or impractical the instinct was considering she was heading straight to work, Tara simply got dressed. Given her busy schedule and not just because of spontaneous, hedonistic nights with Jax, she kept a bare bones assortment of toiletries in her purse, so she’d be able to somewhat right her appearance by the time she got back to UCLA.   
  
The one thing she couldn’t put off, though, was her mouth. Cottonmouth would have been an improvement. What she was experiencing was more like rough wool. Tara knew better than to think Jax would have spare toothbrushes laying around his small, attached bathroom, but she could at least rub some toothpaste against her teeth with her index finger and gargle about half a bottle of mouthwash. So, she did just that, wincing the entire time. Because her throat was so sore, unlike the night before, she could barely swallow. She wasn’t sick, though; it wasn’t strep. Instead, it was from overuse - their fighting and their fucking out of control the night before - and from stifling her emotions. It had been Tara’s decision to make the trip to Charming, but that didn’t make leaving Jax again that morning any easier, especially when she knew he was distressed about something.   
  
Grabbing the half full bottle of ibuprofen from the medicine cabinet, Tara shook free a few tablets, walking back out into the bedroom to look for something she could take the pain medication with, but, of course, there wasn’t a bottle of water in sight. The tap water was out of the question. Tara wasn’t sure if it was runoff from the garage, but the clubhouse’s tap water was disgusting. She’d rather dry swallow the pills than risk gagging on the hard water. And there was no way she was wading out into the cesspool the clubhouse became after a signature party.   
  
Instead, she located a beer from the night before - at some point, Jax had run out to the bar to grab them a six pack - that still had a few inches of warm, hoppy liquid swimming around the bottom of its bottle. “What the hell,” she murmured to herself. “Hair of the dog, right,” before taking all three capsules at once, making sure to leave enough beer behind for Jax to repeat her own actions once he eventually woke up. To make it even easier for him, Tara upended several more pain pills, leaving them on the nightstand.  
  
Briefly, she debated trying to wake him… if for nothing else so she could say goodbye. But leaving was hard enough without Jax fighting her, without him trying to convince her to stay, and, frankly, Tara wasn’t sure she was strong enough to put him off that morning. Plus, she was already running behind schedule. If she wanted to make it back in time for work, then she should have left ten minutes earlier. Waking Jax would just make her even later. Try as he might, Jax just couldn’t wrap his head around how important her job as a research assistant was to her. Not only was Tara grateful to have a job applicable to her field, but it was rare for a second year medical student to be hired for such a position, and she wasn’t going to fuck it up… not even for Jax.   
  
So, instead of waking him, she searched the room for something she could use as a note and something to write with, the pen easier to find than the scrap piece of paper. Eventually, though, she found an old receipt, turning it over to write _Happy New Year_ and simply signing it with a heart and her initial, _T_. Tara placed it on Jax’s nightstand beside the waiting ibuprofen and underneath the nearly empty bottle of beer. After one last indulgence - she leaned over to place a whisper of a kiss against Jax’s left shoulder blade… right over where, under layers of skin, muscle, and bone, his heart beat strong and true, Tara silently slipped out of the room, down the back hallway, and out into the early morning stillness through the clubhouse’s emergency exit - no one, not even Jax, any the wiser. 

V

When Tara got home from work that night and opened her door, perhaps she should have been surprised to find Jax waiting for her. After all, he didn’t have a key, though something as irrelevant as a lock wouldn’t keep Jax Teller away from something, or more specifically, someone - _her_ \- that he wanted. But she wasn’t surprised. Because this was just what he did. Jax wouldn’t make the trip to L.A. to see her unless she went to visit him first. It was as if her trips to Charming, to him, reminded Jax of how much he missed her, of how much he loved her, and the hours she could spare him were not enough. Maybe Tara should have been flattered by this, by how so often she left him wanting, needing, more, but, just once, she wanted Jax to be the one to take the initiative, to come to her first and without prompting. What did surprise her, however, was the bag he had brought with him.   
  
That was new.  
  
That was different.  
  
That was initiative.  
  
That was progress.  
  
That was both worrisome and wonderful.  
  
That was… so much.  
  
Without saying a word, Tara silently shut and locked her apartment door behind her, only then turning around to completely face an agitated, restless Jax. He had both hands shoved deeply into the front pockets of his jeans, his kutte was off, and it was obvious that, like her, he hadn’t showered yet either. Jax looked exhausted, completely consumed by whatever it was that had brought him to her that night. It was in really looking at him that Tara realized this wasn’t like all of his other reactionary trips. This visit had nothing to do with her own and everything to do with whatever was eating away at Jax.  
  
When he spoke, his voice was rough from disuse, from too many cigarettes, and from emotion. “Opie got pinched. That’s why he and Donna weren’t at the party last night.”  
  
“Oh, Jax, I’m so sorry.” Although Tara took several steps in his direction, she stopped before she could touch him. If last night was proof of anything, if they were going to actually discuss what had happened with his best friend and why Jax was there with her in L.A., then they would need to maintain a physical distance between them… at least initially. “How long will he be in county?”  
  
Jax was already shaking his head in rebuttal before he said, “it’s not like the trouble we’ve been in before; it’s hard time. At least five years. In a state pen.”  
  
“But Donna,” she exclaimed, her voice rising with her concern. “His kids!” In that moment, it was too much for Tara to contemplate what Jax’s reveal could mean for him. While she had always known that the Sons were outlaw, Tara had also been able to separate Jax and Opie from the rest of them. It was one thing to think about a man like Otto Delaney in a state penitentiary; it was another matter entirely to picture the only man she had ever loved there. When Jax still didn’t say anything else, Tara asked, “what happened?”  
  
She wasn’t sure if she should have felt reassured or terrified that Jax didn’t even hesitate to tell her, “it was a botched arsen job. He was blowing up a truck yard when something went wrong. We’re still not sure about all of the details, but the cops showed up, and Opie was arrested, bail denied.”  
  
There was more to the story, though - something else to explain Jax’s anger and why Opie was the only member to get arrested, because, surely, he hadn’t been sent in alone for such a big job? “No one else was caught?”  
  
Jax’s response was only two words, but those two words held so much hatred and bitterness. “Kyle ran.”  
  
Her reaction was instinct, snapping out, “I never liked him!”  
  
Jax offered her an indulgent smile, the small, sad grin his acknowledgement that her intuition about his former brother - and there was no doubt in Tara’s mind that Kyle Hobart had been stripped of his patch… one way or another… after abandoning Opie, Jax’s best friend and the son of one of the first nine - had been accurate. “I know, Babe.”  
  
“And you weren’t there?” It wasn’t a question of Jax leaving Opie behind. Tara just needed reassurance that, unlike their friend, Jax wasn’t only on the outside because he had been able to secure bail; she needed to know that his trip to L.A. was more than a goodbye before he went in for five or more years.  
  
Luckily, Jax knew her well enough to realize all of that without explanation. “I wasn’t there,” he promised her. And she believed him.  
  
“And now you’re here?”  
  
This time, it was Jax’s turn to come closer to her, only he didn’t refrain from touching her, wrapping both of his hands around her hips and pulling her into him. He dropped his forehead down so that he could rest it against her own, whispering, “I’m _here_ , Tara.”  
  
Her hands found purchase in his t-shirt, fisting it desperately as she asked, “what does that mean?”  
  
“It means… it means that I’m angry. I’m angry at the club for not doing more to help Opie, to help Donna and the kids, and I’m angry that Opie was sent in to do such a big job with only Kyle as a lookout. I’m angry that Clay let Kyle live, and I’m angry that Piney is so goddamn resigned towards everything and everyone. I’m bitter, and I’m resentful, too, and I just… I couldn’t stay there any longer, Babe.”  
  
“In Charming?,” she asked for clarification, wondering just how long exactly Jax was planning on staying with her. She’d welcome him for as long as he would give her, but she was still curious as to how bad things had become for him at home.   
  
“No,” Jax denied. “In SAMCRO.”  
  
Gasping, Tara wrenched herself away from him, so she could look into his tortured eyes. She never thought he’d leave - not after he refused to go when she moved to San Diego for her undergraduate studies. He had barely been a full patch then - just having finished his prospecting the year before, but, now, he was Vice President. They’d made the more than seven hour trip between Charming and San Diego a few times when she was still pre-med, and UCLA had been Tara’s gesture of compromise for med school, because it was two hours closer, but Tara had refused to even consider Stanford and Palo Alto or UCSF and San Francisco, despite the fact that they were the better surgical programs, and Jax had been adamant that SAMCRO was his future. With both of them unwilling to bend further, they had simply continued with their occasional visits, everything else between them messy and unresolved. But now…? “You’re _out_?”  
  
“Transfering,” Jax corrected with a wince. He must have believed she’d take the revision badly, but transferring was far more than she’d ever allowed herself to even hope for, and it meant getting Jax out of Charming - away from his mother, and Clay, and his family’s history there, and, in that moment, such news felt like more than just a victory; it felt like a miracle _and_ the first step in them maybe getting the future together that they both wanted. “I needed a change, you know, and, with you here and Opie in Chino for the next five years, I thought I’d join the Long Beach charter for a while. They have an opening, and I need to be _here_ right now, not in Charming. SAMCRO is the original charter, but Long Beach was its first branch. If it was good enough for Chico, then it’s good enough for me.”  
  
Releasing her grip on his shirt, Tara stood up on her tiptoes so that she could throw her arms around Jax’s neck and throw herself against him. “I hate that Opie is locked up,” she told him softly from where her head was buried in his neck, “but I love that you’re here. With me.”  
  
They’d have a lot to figure out. Tara’s schedule, between med school and her work as a research assistant, was intense and demanding, and she lived in a graduate student apartment, but any and every obstacle was worth it if it meant that, in his own way, Jax was finally choosing her. It didn’t bother her that Opie’s incarceration was also playing a role in Jax’s decision, because Opie had always been a part of their relationship - as Jax’s best friend and as Tara’s partner in trying to be a steadying influence in Jax’s otherwise capricious and turbulent life. In fact, it only seemed fitting that, in his own way, Opie was helping Jax and Tara be together despite all of the obstacles and difficult circumstances surrounding them.   
  
“Yeah, Babe,” Jax agreed. And she could feel if not see the genuine, contented smile on his face. “I’m with you now. Finally. And I’m not going anywhere.”


End file.
